American Agriculturist, November 29, 1924 
TTllC TTrouble iviskcr— By E. R. Eastman 
TN the beginning of the sixth inning 
*- Tom Lynch’s lack of years began to 
show. Experienced fans saw r the signs of 
overconfidence before the actual break 
came. Like many another, he could 
stand neither praise nor success. He 
became too sure of himself, more in¬ 
terested in his “grand stand” than in his 
game, and almost before he knew w r hat 
had happened, the Richland boys began 
to knock him all over the lot, and piled up 
four runs. Pandemonium broke loose 
among the Richland rooters, while those 
on the other side -were marked mostly by 
a discouraged silence. Lynch had blown 
up, and blown up badly. 
A hurried council failed to suggest 'a 
substitute. Finally, Bradley, who had 
been holding down right field, called the 
captain to one side and said: 
“Hank, I used to be called quite a 
twdrler in college days, and, in fact, while I 
would not speak of it ordinarily, I ought 
to say, in view' of the situation now, that I 
carried the old varsity team through some 
hot scraps. I haven’t played in two 
years, am out of practice and condition; 
but you’re in sort of a bad fix, and I 
might be able to last through the last two 
innings, at least hold them from running 
up many more.” 
Hank looked him up and down, 
scratched his head, and said: 
“Well, things can’t be very much 
worse. We’re probably licked anyway, 
so go to it, Bradley.” 
When the seventh opened,-Bradley w'as 
in the box. 
“See who’s come,” yelled Richland. 
“Look’t! The farm doctor!” 
T here was much craning of necks 
and crow'ding to get a look at Speed- 
town’s new pitcher. 
Bradley was not excited, but he was 
out of practice and pretty wdld, so his first 
batter got to first on balls, amid the hoots 
of Richland and the groans of Speed town. 
Then he began to tighten up and the 
crowd saw r some of the pitching that had 
once made Bradley and his team famous 
in college days. Not a Richland batter 
could touch the leather. Whist! and the 
catcher had it while the batter blinked. 
The Speedtown crow r d started to revive. 
So did the players. In their half of the 
eighth, they found the tired Richland 
pitcher, and knocked him to the tune of 
five runs. 
Then the crowd w r ent wild. Dorothy 
climbed out of the car and crow'ded into 
the front line so as not to miss a move. 
Jim Taylor got up from his seat on the 
ground and paced back and forth while 
the spectators back of him, whose view' 
W'as shut off, swore at him to “Sit down 
in front.” The great waves of noise 
ebbed and flow'ed in a continuous bellow of 
inharmonious sound. 
Four to five, in favor of Speedtowm, and 
the beginning of the ninth! Richland’s 
crack batter w'as up. Bradley let him 
have one a little wide; the batter reached 
for it, and hit a little pop fly inside of 
third. The baseman and short-stop both 
went for it, collided, and in the mix-up 
the batter reached first. 
Bradley’s old speed had come back. 
His catcher w r as not used to him, and 
found it hard to hold him. Bradley 
fanned the second man, but the catcher 
dropped the third strike, and when he 
threw' to first he w r as wdld. This resulted 
in getting a runner on both first and 
second. Bradley w'as a little afraid to 
put them straight over the plate for the 
next'one up, and the batter refused to bite 
on the wide ones. The result w r as that 
Archie, the “Ump,” gave the man his 
base on balls. Three men on base, and 
no one out! 
Then came old grizzly Frank Stone, 
seasoned ball player of two decades, 
pinch hitter, calm, confident, smiling. 
Bradley threw a ball wide and high. 
Frank nodded at it, as it went by, and 
smiled. 
Archie said: “Ball one!” 
Again the white leather w'hizzed, and 
again old Stone smiled and nodded. 
Then Bradley straightened another one 
out shoulder high and right over the 
plate. There was an incredibly swift 
move from the batter, a sharp crack, a al 
the ball leaped from the club so swiftly 
that the eye could hardly follow it, 
straight ahead with a slightly upward 
slant. 
Almost as the batter swung, Bradley 
jumped and with extended right bare 
hand picked the red hot ball out of the 
air. So hard w r as the blow when it 
struck his hand that it carried Bradley 
off of his feet, but w'hen he came up he 
still had the ball. 
Archie, the “Ump,” said: “Batter 
out!” and the game w'as done. 
After several heats of the trotting 
races were finished, the running race was 
called and six beautiful but crazy, rearing, 
plunging and dangerous beasts with their 
gailv-clad jockeys lined up for the starter’s 
signal. 
Down below the grandstand, there was 
a heavy fence along the track, back of 
which the amateur policemen were 
having great difficulty in holding the 
unruly crow’d. Farther down the track 
there was an open gate in the fence where 
w'agons and automobiles could cross the 
track from one part of the grounds to 
another. To be sure that he would have 
a good view of the running race, Jim 
strolled down out of the crowd and took 
his position close to the track near this 
open gate. 
When the race was called, there was 
much excitement. Men and women stood 
up in the grandstand shutting off the 
view of those back of them; those down 
on the ground shoved and jammed the 
fortunate ones in front in an effort to 
push their way through so that they could 
What Has Happened in the Story Thus Far 
J IM TAYLOR, after much thought about the farmer’s hard work and 
small pay, signs the agreement of a new organization, The Dairy¬ 
men’s League, and some of his neighbors follow his example. Old 
Johnny Ball, his nearest neighbor and father of Dorothy, Jim’s child¬ 
hood sweetheart, is bitterly opposed to the young man’s ideas. A 
coolness comes between the two families and when Bradley, the county 
agent, confides in Jim his love for Dorothy, Jim gives up hope of winning 
her. 
Bradley takes Dorothy to the county fair and Jim goes alone. He falls 
in with Bill Mead, Ball’s hired man, and has some amusing adventures. 
But Dorothy cuts him before Bradley and Bill, and when Bill is ejected 
from the fair grounds for starting a fight, Jim is left to watch the ball 
game alone. 
Then all the noise that had gone before 
was as nothing compared with that which 
broke loose. Old man Kortwright’s 
voice would not wake Jim calling the cows 
the next morning, for he had lost it 
yelling for Speedtown. There were many 
others, too, but they continued to open 
their mouths and go through the motions. 
Finally a bunch of Speedtown players 
surged toward Bradley, and, putting him 
on their shoulders, followed by a crowd, 
started a wild and triumphant march 
around and around the diamond. 
When they came to Bradley’s car the 
second time, he pleaded with them to put 
him down, and they finally did. There 
stood Dorothy with her hair awry. 
cheeks red and eyes shining with excite¬ 
ment. 
“Oh, Harry,” she cried, “wasn’t it 
glorious? And I think you were just 
splendid!” 
CHAPTER IX 
T HE ninth inning, and the score four 
to five! Time to tighten up! Speed- 
town probably never saw such pitching 
before, nor after. The next two batters v 
had just six balls, three apiece, and then 
they went back and sat down, as quietly 
and as inconspicuously as possible. 
A FTER the ball game, Jim went down 
to the back of the grounds in the 
grove where he had tied his horse and 
there found his sister waiting for him, 
ready to eat the picnic luncheon. Before 
he could enjoy his own meal, he fed his 
horse with the oats in the old box that 
he had brought along in the back of the 
buggy, for whatever the occasion, no good 
farmer ever fails to feed the beasts that 
serve him. His sister had already taken 
the big basket of lunch out of the wagon. 
When Jim was ready, the}' joined a party 
of friends and spread the good things on 
the blanket laid on the ground for a 
tablecloth. 
The program for the afternoon con¬ 
sisted mostly of horse trotting races. To 
a lot of people, a horse trot is worth going 
a long way to see, but Jim was not in¬ 
terested. He could never be quite sure, 
with al’. the crowding and jockeying for 
position, together with the betting that 
was going on, that the best horse would 
be the winner. 
A running race, though, was a different 
matter. Here was some real excitement, 
a race where great skill was needed to 
control the excitable horses on the 
narrow half-mile track. 
see the track. Others climbed on the top 
of the fence, the band stand and the 
performer’s stand. Everyone was shout¬ 
ing at the top of his voice. 
The horses lined up, and at the signal 
from the starter, they were off. As they 
bounded by Jim, he was interested in the 
tense faces of the jockeys leaning over 
the necks of their horses. Some of them 
were whipping and spurring their animals, 
but there was one little fellow, hardly 
more than a boy, on a big, rangy, beauti¬ 
ful chestnut who used neither whip nor 
spur, but drove his horse by a constant 
stream of encouraging talk. 
This rider and his horse were well in 
the lead when they went by Jim. When 
they reached the other side of the track, 
he could see in the dust that tile chestnut 
was still leading, but a gray was slowly 
lessening the distance between. Head to 
flank, then a second more, and the gray’s 
head reached the chestnut’s neck. The 
wild crowd rocked the air with noise. 
Now they were around the curve and on 
the home stretch. They were neck and 
neck, and the gray was still gaining. 
Only two hundred yards to go! 
The crowd was tensely silent. Now the 
gray was ahead! In an effort to keep his 
lead, his jockey was whipping him at 
every leap. The chestnut’s little rider 
leaned forward and said something to 
the horse. He responded with a great 
leap and it seemed as though his rider 
fairly lifted him in a great bound ahead 
of his rival, and they passed under the 
wire a few inches in the lead. Then the 
crowd went crazy again. 
As the big gray came down the track 
toward where Jim was standing, he saw 
that something was the matter; then as 
he came abreast of Jim, he knew that the 
horse was beyond the control of his driver. 
The excitement and the flogging from his 
desperate rider had driven him crazy. 
He was running away. On he plunged, 
the jockey barely managing to hold him 
on the track. For the second time, the 
runaway made the complete circuit of the 
half-mile track and again came under the 
wire which stretched between the judges’ 
stand and the grandstand. 
The crowd cheered no longer, but stood 
tense and silent, almost holding its breath, 
for all realized that tragedy was imminent 
as the horse passed the grandstand. It 
was plain that he was slackening his 
gait. No animal could stand that terrible 
pace. If the driver could only hold on 
for a few minutes more, and keep the 
horse on the track, he would tire himself 
out and stop. But as he thundered down 
the track toward where Jim stood at the 
break in the track fence, the saddle 
slipped and the jockey plunged' sideways 
off of the beast with one foot caught 
in the stirrup. As he fell, his pull on the 
bridle and his weight swerved the horse 
to the left, straight toward the open gate 
in the track fence where Jim stood. 
In the path of the running horse, 
across the fair grounds between the track 
and the entrance gate, were hundreds 
of the holiday crowd, women with their 
babies, children with their gay balloons 
and squawkers, old men renewing their 
youth by taking their young grandsons 
to the fair, young men with their sweet¬ 
hearts, all jolly and gay, in enjoyment 
of their holiday. 
Jim saw the saddle slip, the sickening 
sideways lurch of the boy driver, and the 
wild, plunging horse coming toward 
him. With every muscle in obedience 
to a lightning-quick command of the 
brain, the young farmer plunged straight 
toward the head and breast of the 
running horse, while shouting men and 
screaming women fell over one another 
to get out of the way. By great good 
luck one hand caught the bridle close 
to the mouth, and in a second more he 
had both hands fast. 
Jim’s heavy weight soon slowed the 
horse to a standstill, and then, frightened, 
the horse reared and began to strike with 
vicious forefeet at the weight which stuck 
so like a bulldog to his head. Finally, his 
foot did strike Jim a glancing blow, and 
the world of lost sweethearts, spoiled 
holidays and runaway race-horses faded 
into darkness and peace. 
T HE first instinct of man may be that 
of self-preservation and to flinch from 
danger; the second impulse is to stay or 
come back and stand by the guns. When 
the runaway horse turned toward the 
track entrance, the men in his path in¬ 
stinctively dodged back, but during the 
moment that Jim struggled at his feet, 
the farmer men came back and, regardless 
of the danger, they grabbed the horse in 
such numbers that when Jim lapsed into 
unconsciousness, a dozen men held the 
horse from further damage. Others 
picked up Jim and the injured jockey and 
tenderly laid them on blankets from the 
nearby cars. Other men ran to find a 
doctor. 
In the constant fight of humanity, led 
by the doctor, old Death must have 
many a grim laugh. Well he knows 
that even a doctor’s best victories are but 
sadly temporary affairs and that in the 
end he and the undertaker will get them 
all, even to the doctor himself. Then, to 
round off the good measure, like the man 
who stole the mill and came back after 
the dam, the undertaker himself will 
open his eyes some fine night and find his 
“Business Partner” leering over the 
foot of the bed at him. 
Dr. Westman heard the call to arms 
and went down out of the grandstand 
to the injured man. 
In that crowd that opened as he 
approached, there were few who did not 
know, respect and love this silent doctor, 
for among them were dozens whom he 
had helped into the world, and then, in 
turn, had come a generation later to see 
that their children safely saw the first 
light. Many there were, too, with whom 
he had stood shoulder to shoulder in 
imminent crises of farm sickrooms, for 
Dr. Westman, during more than fifty 
years, had ridden the country hills and 
valleys of the farm country in the rains 
and sun of summer and through the 
drifted roads of winter to ease his people’s 
(Continued on page 382) 
